Emphatically

How to spell emphatically

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce emphatically

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does emphatically mean?

1. adverbIn a forceful, definite way that leaves no doubt about the speaker's meaning.

Emphatically in a sentence

• The committee emphatically rejected the proposed budget cuts.

• She stated emphatically that she would not be returning to the old firm.

Where does emphatically come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This adverb traces back to the Greek emphasis, which literally meant 'a showing in' or 'an appearance within', built from en 'in' and phainein 'to show' (the same verb that gives us 'phenomenon' and 'phantom'). In ancient rhetoric emphasis described a way of implying more than the words literally stated, and the related adjective emphatikos meant 'expressive' or 'striking'. Latin took these forms over as emphasis and emphaticus, and English borrowed the adjective 'emphatic' in the early 1600s for speech that is forceful or insistent. The adverb 'emphatically' followed naturally by adding the regular -ally ending. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the Greek phi survives as 'ph' for an /f/ sound, and the ending is the full -ically, not a single -ly, so it carries two l's where writers often drop one.

How the word is built

• em- (in, within)
• phat- (from Greek phainein: to show)
• -ic (adjective)
• -ally (adverb suffix)